Learning God's Healthy way to a better Life!
A major study links a chemical widely used in plastic products, including baby bottles, to health problems in humans like heart disease and diabetes, but U.S. regulators said on Tuesday they still believe it is safe.
The chemical bisphenol A, or BPA, is commonly used in plastic food and beverage containers and in the coating of food cans.
Until now, environmental and consumer activists who have questioned the safety of BPA have relied on animal studies. ..more...
Thousands of patients with high blood pressure could benefit from changing their drug treatment regimen to reduce their risk of cardiac death. The current U.S. hypertension treatment guidelines recommend using a thiazide diuretic – a drug that increases the volume of urine – alone as the initial drug therapy for high blood pressure. But a failure of diuretic drugs to decrease deaths from heart attacks, an important consequence of hypertension, prompted Vanderbilt University Medical Center researchers to analyze data from existing clinical trials of diuretic drugs. They found that combining a thiazide diuretic with a “potassium-sparing” drug to treat hypertension reduced both sudden cardiac death and total coronary mortality by 40 percent. The findings call into question the current treatment guidelines. “The recommendations can now be re-examined in light of these new findings,” said John Oates, M.D., senior author of the study published in the September/October issue of the Journal of the American Society of Hypertension. The Joint National Committee, under the direction of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, publishes clinical practice guidelines for hypertension – new guidelines are expected in 2009. Thiazide diuretics successfully reduce blood pressure for many patients, but they are also known to deplete potassium, said Oates, a professor of Medicine and hypertension specialist. This potassium “wasting” has sparked concern over the years with studies suggesting a link between potassium loss and sudden cardiac death. Oates and colleagues examined data from controlled clinical trials that compared a thiazide diuretic/potassium-sparing (ENaC inhibitor) drug combination to placebo. They generated new, previously unpublished data on sudden death in these trials, and then analyzed the results of the trials in a meta-analysis – a statistical evaluation of data combined from multiple trials. They found a 40 percent reduction in total cardiac mortality and in sudden cardiac death in elderly patients with hypertension taking the drug combination, compared with those receiving placebo. “It was very striking,” Oates said. The investigators also performed a new meta-analysis of the clinical trials of thiazides given without a potassium-sparing drug, adding new trials to the mix. They found no benefit in coronary mortality and a 26 percent increase in sudden death. Even though the increase was not statistically significant, it was “going in the direction in which you didn’t want to go,” Oates said. Observational studies previously had found an increase in sudden cardiac death in patients taking a thiazide diuretic alone, and one showed that sudden death was greater at higher doses of thiazides, he said. Studies in animal models of heart attacks also have demonstrated that low potassium levels (caused by thiazide diuretics) can spark the abnormal heart rhythms that lead to sudden death. Do thiazide diuretics given alone have an adverse effect of increasing the risk of sudden cardiac death in patients with high blood pressure? It’s possible. “There’s biologic plausibility for an adverse effect of the thiazides,” Oates said. “If it’s true, it’s probably the largest adverse effect in the history of modern pharmacology. The number of individuals affected over the last 50 years would be staggering.” And since the current U.S. clinical practice guidelines for hypertension recommend a thiazide diuretic without a potassium-sparing drug, millions of patients may be at increased risk of coronary death, Oates pointed out. Oates acknowledges that potassium-sparing drugs may reduce coronary mortality through a mechanism unrelated to their prevention of potassium loss. As studies proceed to determine how these drugs reduce death risk, he said, it’s time to add them to thiazides as recommended first-line treatment for high blood pressure in the elderly. | |||||
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“People would be horrified at the thought of eating off their toilet seat,” says British researcher Anthony Hilton. “But few realize eating off their car dashboard is just as likely to make them sick.” Hilton was the leader of a new British study by Aston University in Birmingham which shows the typical vehicle harbors over 280 different bacteria per square centimeter. The study, conducted for a U.K. insurance company, showed some spots are nastier than others—the gearshift, for example, usually crawls with over 350 different varieties. The worst place is the trunk, where about 850 bacteria typically hitch a ride. Scientists even found evidence of excrement in one Germ-Mobile’s trunk, which is where many people put their grocery bags. They also found that cars used to transport kids and pets are the germiest. “Whilst most of the bacteria we’ve found are unlikely to cause serious health problems, some cars, particularly those which regularly carry children and animals, play host to potentially harmful germs,” Hilton said. And you may want to think twice before turning on the heater or air conditioner—when the fan comes on, it blows even more germs and fungi around the interior, probably because few people regularly replace the vehicle’s interior air filter. Most of the people whose vehicles were used for study owned up to being slobs with their cars, and half said they would never allow their homes to get in the condition their cars were in. . |
Sweeping lifestyle changes including a better diet and more exercise can raise the body's levels of an enzyme closely involved in controlling the aging process, U.S. researchers reported on Monday.
The small study involved 30 men with low-risk prostate cancer who underwent three months of lifestyle changes. They had blood levels of the enzyme telomerase 29 percent higher after these three months than when they began.
Telomerase fixes and lengthens parts of chromosomes known as telomeres that control longevity and are also important for maintenance of immune-system cells.
The research in the journal Lancet Oncology was led by Dr. Dean Ornish, head of the Preventive Medicine Research Institute in Sausalito, California, and a well-known author advocating lifestyle changes to improve health.
The lifestyle changes included a diet rich in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes and soy products, moderate exercise such as walking for half an hour a day, and an hour of daily stress management methods such as meditation.
"This is the first study showing that anything can increase telomerase. If it were a new drug that had been shown to do this, it would be a billion-dollar drug. But this is something that people can do for free," Ornish said in a telephone interview.
Shortening of telomeres is seen as an indicator of disease risk and premature death in some types of cancer, including breast, prostate, colon and lung cancer.
Previously published findings from the same group of men showed they experienced dramatic changes at the genetic level.
As expected, they lost weight, lowered their blood pressure and saw other health improvements.
They also had changes in activity in about 500 genes. The activity of disease-preventing genes increasing while some disease-promoting genes, including those involved in prostate cancer and breast cancer, shut down, the researchers said.
In a “What’s old is new” medical moment, Indian researchers discovered that holy basil, a native Indian herb long believed to promote health, really does promote health—and it has anti-aging properties in the bargain.
Holy basil (Ocimum sanctum), also known as “Tulsi,” is a relative of the herb used in Western cooking. It differs from culinary basil in that it is more clove-like, and its leaves are commonly used in India to brew a tea valued for its healing powers.
Read More...The results of a new study support an interaction between severe life events, psychological distress, and breast cancer. The findings appear in the online BioMed Central journal BMC Cancer.
"Young women who are exposed to severe life events more than once should be considered as a risk group for breast cancer and treated accordingly," first author Dr. Ronit Peled said in a telephone interview with Reuters Health.
Read More...
Home Depot is a major vendor of RoundUp.
RoundUp has been linked to numerous environmental and human health problems, including:
To sign a petition asking Home Depot to dump RoundUp from its inventory, click the link below.
Testing prompted by an Associated Press story that revealed trace amounts of pharmaceuticals in drinking water supplies has shown that more Americans are affected by the problem than previously thought — at least 46 million.more..
